Imagined Corners. Willa Muir

felt that she had interrupted a tirade against her brother. The over-loud tones of a customer saying hastily, ‘Aweel, I’ll just take these, Miss Watson,’ never failed to make her bristle. On this occasion, however, she found the shop empty, and, still remembering her lesson, even smiled pleasantly in Mary’s face, saying: ‘Lovely weather for September, isn’t it?’

      ‘No’ sae bad,’ admitted Mary, ‘But a’thing’s very dry.’

      Things were not drier than her tone. Her attitude said plainly: ‘I don’t take it as a favour that you come into my shop: it’s only your duty to support a member of your own congregation.’

      As the bales of material were unrolled with a thump and measured off on a yardstick Mary’s tongue was as active as her hands.

      ‘I suppose you’ve heard that the Town Council has granted a licence to the braw new Golf Club? That’s a fine state o’ things, Miss Murray. There’s mair pubs than kirks in the town already. I hope the minister is to do something about it? The Town Council should be weel rappit ower the knuckles.’

      Sarah was well aware that Mary regarded the minister as incapable of rapping anyone over the knuckles. His failure to rap the Town Council would only become another grievance.

      ‘You should stand for the Town Council and do it yourself, Miss Watson.’ This was a hastily improvised defence, but its effect was unexpected. Mary bridled.

      ‘Me, Miss Murray! What would put that into your head now?’

      ‘I’m sure the minister would agree with me.’

      ‘Aweel, I’m no’ saying. If you and he think it’s my duty—’

      Mary’s face was impassive again.

      ‘Of course it’s your duty.’

      ‘Ay, now, I never thought o’ that.’

      Mary slowly folded up the stuff and made it into a neat parcel.

      ‘I’ll see what my sister says till’t.’

      Then, as if conscious of weakness, she added in her sharpest voice:

      ‘And you might tell the minister that he hasna darkened our door for mair than twa months. My sister’s a poor bedridden woman, and even if he wasna the minister it wad only be decent of him to give her a look-in in the by-going.’

      IV

      Number twenty-six High Street, which was being prepared for its new master and mistress, was approved by Mabel. Like every house in the old High Street, of course, it had to be entered from a ‘close’, but once the narrow close entrance was left behind a fair-sized paved courtyard opened out, framed by two respectable Georgian houses, pillared and porticoed, with clipped box-trees set in green tubs before the doors. Dr Scrymgeour’s name shone resplendently on one door, and on the other a smaller and more modest brass plate read ‘H. Shand’. Mabel’s eye fell on that as usual with a slight sense of shock; she could never think of Hector as H. Shand, a householder. She became very much Mrs John Shand as she looked at it; she stiffened a little and examined the big brass bell-knob on its square plate and the whitened doorstep. Both were speckless. That maid wasn’t going to be so bad.

      The said maid was breathless when she opened the door, and her eyes were shining.

      ‘Miss Shand’s here,’ she said. ‘An’ everything’s like a new pin.’

      ‘You must never answer the door in a kitchen apron. You must always change into a clean one to open the door, Mary Ann!’

      ‘But that would keep folk waiting.’

      ‘Better to let them wait. Better still to keep a clean apron under the dirty one, and then all you have to do is to slip it off. Try to remember that.’

      Mrs John Shand sailed into the hall.

      ‘Are you there, Aunt Janet?’ she called in a clear voice.

      ‘Here, my dear,’ came the answer in a deeper more muffled tone. ‘Up here in their bedroom.’

      Mabel mounted the stairs, still armoured in dignity. It was her sole defence against the thought of her husband’s young half-brother, who annoyed her by making her feel like a schoolgirl. He was the only young man who had ever kissed her with indifference. But she was Mrs John Shand now.

      Aunt Janet appeared in the doorway.

      ‘How are you, my dear?’ She pecked Mabel’s cheek and went on without a pause: ‘I think everything’s all right now; the sheets are airing and the kitchen’s in apple-pie order.’

      ‘I had to check Mary Ann for coming to the door in a dirty apron,’ said Mrs John Shand. ‘Do you think she’ll be all right?’

      ‘Oh, she’s strong and willing, and, you know, my dear, we can give Elizabeth a few hints, perhaps, now and then, you know.’

      Between them there vibrated a mutual though unspoken opinion that Elizabeth would need those hints.

      Aunt Janet drew Mabel into the bedroom and lowered her voice.

      ‘It’s a good thing I came up here. Do you know, that girl had set out the chambers under the beds.’

      Mabel could not resist the reflection that Hector had survived more shameless facts than unconcealed chamberpots. Nor was Elizabeth likely to be a stickler for propriety.

      The flicker of mirth in her face did not escape Aunt Janet, who became almost voluminous as she enfolded young Mrs John in benevolence.

      ‘I know you’ll do your very best for Elizabeth, my dear. She hasn’t as much social experience as you, but she’s a dear girl – a dear girl. And she’s so clever you know; she has done very well at the University.’

      ‘Clever she must be,’ admitted Mabel, trying to shake off her aunt-in-law, ‘or she would never have got Hector to marry her. She’s the only woman who has ever managed that.’

      If there was any personal feeling in these words Aunt Janet did not notice it; she observed only an aspersion on her beloved nephew.

      ‘Hector may be thoughtless, but he’s not so bad as you and John think. I assure you he’s not. And he’s so conscious of Elizabeth’s goodness in marrying him. “She’ll keep me straight, Aunt Janet,” he said. “I promise you I’ll go straight.” Poor boy, he has so much against him.’

      She absentmindedly patted the eiderdown on the nearest of the twin beds.

      ‘Oh, Elizabeth will keep him in order,’ said Mabel, walking to the window and staring out of the garden. Aunt Janet was too irritating.

      ‘A dear girl. A dear girl.’ Aunt Janet furtively wiped her eyes. ‘I’m sure they’ll be happy.’

      In the kitchen Mary Ann was singing to herself. ‘Isn’t it fine,’ she was thinking, ‘a bride comin’ hame to her ain hoose? My certy! they’ll be here in half-an-’oor. Where’s that clean apron?’

      TWO

      William Murray stood looking out of the window, his hands clasped behind his back, while Sarah piled the dirty dinner-dishes on a tray. Now that Ned was actually out of the house she felt exhausted; the exertion of lifting the tray was almost too much for her. She would be thankful when she got into bed. So precisely regulated was her scheme of life, however, that she thought it rather a disgraceful weakness to lie down during the day, and for the same reason it did not occur to her that William, being stronger and less tired, might carry the tray into the kitchen.

      Nor did it occur to William. He had not quite escaped the influence of his father, who had ruled his house, as he had ruled his school, on the assumption that the female sex was devised by God for the lower grades of work and knowledge, and that it was beneath the dignity of a man to stoop to female tasks. But although